Squish is my entry into TIGSource’s Bootleg Demakes contest, a contest that asked participants to remake a modern game in a retro style. It’s conceptually inspired by the very underrated PSP puzzle game Crush; rather than demake the game for a specific system, I demade the core mechanic in simpler terms. In Crush, the player can compress the 3D view of a level into a 2D view and transverse the level as if it was a 2D platformer. In Squish, the player compresses 2D views into 1D!

Honestly, I started out thinking of it as a joke entry – but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I got that there was potential for some really interesting puzzles here. So I figured I’d give it a shot – I wanted to make *something* for this contest after all, considering I wasted a whole week on a project that was just way too ambitious.

There’s quite a lot I wanted to implement but didn’t have time to – I started it on Friday, finished the engine on Saturday and as a result designed almost all the levels in one day, on Sunday, so it’s pretty rushed and it’s still kinda buggy… All the same, I’m really pleased with how it came out! You can download it here.

Squish features music by the awesome Josiah Tobin! You can check out his other music projects as Swimfail on myspace!

[edit] The game’s since been updated with a level editor and eight new levels, as well as two new gameplay elements!

[edit again] The game’s now at version 1.3 – check out this post to see what’s changed.

22 Comments so far

Awesome. I honestly had fun throughout each level; even if a few were oddly easy towards the end. Nice Demake. I saw this TIGS but didn’t download it at the time; I figured I had to grab it here. Glad I did.

[…] Squish is a single screen puzzle platformer where you have to switch from 2D to 1D to solve the puzzles. A very nice executed concept that brings some interesting levels to the table. Your objective is to reach the exit door in each level. Since the door is locked you have to unlock it by collecting different colored diamonds. In order to do so you must flip the view to 1D were all platforms and diamonds are nicely arranged on one flat platform. Flip around to reach specific platforms that were unreachable beforehand. Download (3 MB) September 19, 2009 Free, Indie Games, Platformer No Comments custom enginefreeplatformerpuzzle platformersingle screen platformertributewindows […]